International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Taliban leaders, accusing them of persecuting women

The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two top Taliban leaders, accusing them of persecuting girls and women in Afghanistan.

The pair are suspected of “ordering, inducing or soliciting” the persecution of girls, women and others who don’t conform with the Taliban’s policy on gender, the ICC said in a statement.

Haibatullah Akhundzada, supreme leader of the Taliban, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, chief justice of the hardline Islamist group, are “criminally responsible” for carrying out persecution on gender-based grounds since “at least” August 15 2021, the ICC’s chief prosecutor said back in January.

Since seizing control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has implemented a string of oppressive measures against women and girls, even cracking down on the sound of women’s voices in public.

Girls have been barred from education after sixth grade. Women must veil their bodies and wear a face covering at all times in public, and have also been forbidden to look at men they are not related to.

“While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,” the ICC said on Tuesday.

“Specifically, the Taliban severely deprived, through decrees and edicts, girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion,” it continued.

Other people, including “allies of girls and women” and those with sexualities or gender identities viewed as “inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender,” were also targeted by the Taliban, the ICC said.

Lisa Davis, the ICC’s Special Adviser on Gender and Other Discriminatory Crimes, said in a post on social media that this is “the first time in history” that an international tribunal has confirmed LGBTQ people to be “victims of crimes against humanity, namely gender persecution.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.